That

You know what I hate? When music sounds so farty you accuse someone of farting, but they didn’t fart, and you’re an arsehole.

I’m staring at that again. Oh, you know—that. Want to hear the worst thing about it? It’s not even properly monumental. It’s a hundred and twenty feet tall, and it’s dwarfed by the sky. It’s like a scratch on your television set, getting in the way without being much of anything. Look at the mountains. Look at the sky. Why…why…?

I should take its picture every day, a gallery of shame. Set up a real camera and snap away.

We had this house, when I was wee, kind of an old one, on an acre of land. It had fruit trees out back, and a vegetable garden, and a pond. I broke my nose once, sliding across that pond. We used to grab the willow fronds and swing on them, and fly out over the ice. Someone was bound to get hurt.

When I was three or four, we got new neighbours. They had six dogs, maybe seven, a whole pack of dogs, and they were loud. They rode motorbikes and called them hawgs. They drank beer and threw bottles in our garden. They blasted rock music, which I didn’t recognise as music. I’d never heard anything like it.

My parents weren’t having it, and they moved us to the suburbs. Our new house had an electrical box across from it, this big, black box with a high-voltage sign on the side. It went, like…grass, pine, maple, BIG BLACK BOX, wisteria. This street’s the same, only it’s green tree, crow tree, LADDER, redberry bush.

One of these things doesn’t belong.

Have I mentioned how the city’s like the sea, in summer? It’s all foliage from the street to the mountains. Waves in the wind, sort of thing. There’s buildings between the trees, and you can see them in winter, but you can’t when the leaves come out. If I don’t wear my specs, it’s just green and mountains. I never wear my specs.

You know what they should do? Put the ladder on the mountains, up where that windmill is, near the ski resort. They should put it up there and cover it in lights, and…that’s it, really. Just move it away.

I’ll stop staring at it when I can get out of bed.

Till then, suffer with me.

Please suffer with me.

It’s just me and that ladder.